[2] If that's WAD and just FOWed, what's the use of this kind of FOW, if an opponent can see the exact number of destroyed industry only just by going into "city bombing" option of an attack. I may be wrong but I think the numbers shown there show the real number of destroyed industry.

[3] Take a look at the FIRES number. I wonder what actually FIRES mean and is there any way to estimate their impact? Players accustomed to real number of hits that stem from ordnance (ie. number of bombs/torps and their accuracy/effect etc.) may have problems with FIRES of such a big number.

After a very short fight [4] (shouldn't there be a special trigger "fight to the last man standing" & Japanese fighters fight with a bit more aggression against an enemy trying to get the Empire's crucial resources? ) causing all in all reported 30 oil hits. The real destroyed oil hits is reported here: (don't have to say IRL it's many times bigger)

Looks like a freak result. I've been bombing Palembang for nearly two months and never seen anything like that.

Not a freak result - in my current PBeM my opponent would send in a dozen B-25s (or maybe B-26s) and do like 1500 Fire by attacking manpower in Palembang. Nothing in the city would be touched except 100+ oil centers destroyed. I captured Palembang at roughly 80% intact and over a matter or 2 weeks with feeble air raids like this my opponent knocked the oil from 800ish to below 400 and there is nothing you can do. If he attacked oil directly the results are what would be expected - a few hits here and there, but on city attack the fires seem to only affect oil and affect them big time - which is silly, as I have yet to see an oil field inside a city. I don't have saves but I have combat reports if needed.

ORIGINAL: michaelm The number of hits is just that hits. The damage per hit could be zero or some value.

Maybe that oil destruction is the direct result of the raid and navy bombers. Maybe that's because of huge fires made by small 20-planes raid... I simply don't know.

I'm not in a position to comment "with knowledge". But I can comment from the perspective of logic and game experience. IMHO the damage of 5x the hits is simply way too much. Losing almost 500 oil fields in one day is just a game breaker.

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ORIGINAL: michaelm Firestorm damage will disable non-Manpower industry, not destroy it. One thing I have seen is that the firestorm can affect all industry in a hex.

Ok, right... I meant disabling. That's the same in my case because no player has millions of supplies in '44 to recover those fields.

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ORIGINAL: Xargun Viberpol what version are you running - maybe its a problem with our version ? Chris H what version are you using ?

Last turn played with lat beta q9b. Soerabaja results from previous q5 beta

ORIGINAL: Xargun Not a freak result - in my current PBeM my opponent would send in a dozen B-25s (or maybe B-26s) and do like 1500 Fire by attacking manpower in Palembang. Nothing in the city would be touched except 100+ oil centers destroyed. I captured Palembang at roughly 80% intact and over a matter or 2 weeks with feeble air raids like this my opponent knocked the oil from 800ish to below 400 and there is nothing you can do. If he attacked oil directly the results are what would be expected - a few hits here and there, but on city attack the fires seem to only affect oil and affect them big time - which is silly, as I have yet to see an oil field inside a city.

Well, that's just plainly scary... Something is wrong here.

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ORIGINAL: michaelm Fires are generated by bombing Manpower. It is a factor of bomb hits and the effect of the bomb hit.

Well, that's confusing. I don't know what has been targeted, but there's not a single manpower hit and yet there's 644 fires and if those fires affect the oil centers as Xargun writes then...

The number of hits is just that hits. The damage per hit could be zero or some value.

Hmmm... so is it calculated just as if the whole oil centers hub was similar to an airfield?

We all know how easy is to close an airfield with 4Es. We know that the level of damage to an airfield is expressed in percentage (100% means fully operational; no damage). But it's not comparable... 1 oil center is not the same as 1% of an airfield damaged.

But to destroy/disable all oil centers in an area... well, that's not a single air strip or a port (one place). In this case reported a single hit has an average damage of 5 scratched oil points per hit.

Maybe that should be lowered or maybe the damage should not be calculated towards 100% of oil (900 oil centers) but towards, let's say 100 of oil (meaning 100 oil centers = 100% max cap for a single raid; simulating different locations of oil fields in the area etc.).

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ORIGINAL: michaelm Fires will always be shown on combat report if there are any city bomb hits and fires present. It does not mean that the bombing caused fires UNLESS the target was Manpower.

Don't get it... So you can attack oil fields (vide Soerabaja attack, no manpower hits, only oil hits so I suppose oil was targeted, but I've seen FIRES info still burning on mouse over Soerabaja/Palembang next morning) and you've got FIRES and if there is manpower in the same hex you've got fires -- that can disable the oil (what Xargun reports)? And there's quite a big number of fires from only 20 planes bombing during thunderstorms (is there a check compare_weather against resulting fires? )

If you look at the combat report it says the aircraft's target at the bottom. It will say City attack if they picked that - which would cause fires and then heavily damage oil. Looks like the attacks were at both the City and the Oil directly.

As much as I would hate to have had this result myself, I also know how incredibly easy it is to destroy an oilfield and the associated refining facilities. The amount of care and technology required just to keep these things from blowing up due to accidents is incredible. In war, you cannot hope to keep these from burning if a bomber can get within "sniffing" distance. Besides the WWII examples, even more modern day examples are plentiful: Kuwait oilfields 1980, Beirut refinery 1978, Abadan ....

So maybe it should or shouldn't be tied to manpower, but the fact would remain that they need to be incredibly susceptible air attack. Sorry.

Here is a attack sequence and what could be expected on report for example. Turn Mission/result T1. Bomb Manpower. Cause 5500 fires. T2. Bomb Oil. Get 10 hits but no damage caused. Fires 2200 (fires will usually begin to disperse. This is what is left after dispersal.) T3. Bomb Oil. Get 5 hits and cause damage 40 oil. Fires 880 T4. Bomb Oil. Get 5 hits and cause damage 100 oil. Fires 350

For the record, all 4Es, dauntless and avengers-perhaps 300-400 attack aircraft (but I have not seen the replay) were set to bomb the oil at Palembang. I would expect an attack of that size to do some significant damage and set quite a few campfires but don't mind if it is tweaked back if the general consensus is that it is excessive.

The results might be excessive but considering that the Allied sub war has been a major no show in this game, I am not displeased with the results.

As much as I would hate to have had this result myself, I also know how incredibly easy it is to destroy an oilfield and the associated refining facilities. The amount of care and technology required just to keep these things from blowing up due to accidents is incredible. In war, you cannot hope to keep these from burning if a bomber can get within "sniffing" distance. Besides the WWII examples, even more modern day examples are plentiful: Kuwait oilfields 1980, Beirut refinery 1978, Abadan ....

So maybe it should or shouldn't be tied to manpower, but the fact would remain that they need to be incredibly susceptible air attack. Sorry.

Refineries... hmm... OK, I agree. I think you're right. They're very fragile and difficult to defend and rebuild. But an oil center in game terms is not a a refinery. It's a crude oil source. It can burn long but then... is it that difficult to rebuild just the same as sophisticated refinery center?

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ORIGINAL: crsutton For the record, all 4Es, dauntless and avengers-perhaps 300-400 attack aircraft (but I have not seen the replay) were set to bomb the oil at Palembang. I would expect an attack of that size to do some significant damage and set quite a few campfires but don't mind if it is tweaked back if the general consensus is that it is excessive.

The results might be excessive but considering that the Allied sub war has been a major no show in this game, I am not displeased with the results.

Ross, so take a look at the replay first. Major damage (ok, most hits ) has been made by 400 navy bombers (76 out of 91 hits) & not by the strategic 4E raids that had not been that disastrous this turn actually... Maybe that's the problem linked with the effectiveness of low flying torpedo bombers not using torpedoes...

It could be quite informative if Michael can give some real numbers of what raid brought what oil center damage here. Is it possible to extract the actual data from the turn? (out of curiosity)

As much as I would hate to have had this result myself, I also know how incredibly easy it is to destroy an oilfield and the associated refining facilities. The amount of care and technology required just to keep these things from blowing up due to accidents is incredible. In war, you cannot hope to keep these from burning if a bomber can get within "sniffing" distance. Besides the WWII examples, even more modern day examples are plentiful: Kuwait oilfields 1980, Beirut refinery 1978, Abadan ....

So maybe it should or shouldn't be tied to manpower, but the fact would remain that they need to be incredibly susceptible air attack. Sorry.

Refineries... hmm... OK, I agree. I think you're right. They're very fragile and difficult to defend and rebuild. But an oil center in game terms is not a a refinery. It's a crude oil source. It can burn long but then... is it that difficult to rebuild just the same as sophisticated refinery center?

quote:

ORIGINAL: crsutton For the record, all 4Es, dauntless and avengers-perhaps 300-400 attack aircraft (but I have not seen the replay) were set to bomb the oil at Palembang. I would expect an attack of that size to do some significant damage and set quite a few campfires but don't mind if it is tweaked back if the general consensus is that it is excessive.

The results might be excessive but considering that the Allied sub war has been a major no show in this game, I am not displeased with the results.

Ross, so take a look at the replay first. Major damage (ok, most hits ) has been made by 400 navy bombers (76 out of 91 hits) & not by the strategic 4E raids that had not been that disastrous this turn actually... Maybe that's the problem linked with the effectiveness of low flying torpedo bombers not using torpedoes...

It could be quite informative if Michael can give some real numbers of what raid brought what oil center damage here. Is it possible to extract the actual data from the turn? (out of curiosity)

Yes I saw that. Actually the replay showed around 500 bombers of all type attacking. It was a pretty hefty raid. Perhaps the avengers are hitting too well but it seems like the SBDs got plenty of hits as well. What sort of AA defenses do you have there? Fort levels? Do you have radar? Perhaps it needs to be scaled back a bit. I don't know.

As for the oil facilities, I know that it took some time for them to repair the oil fields in Kuwait after the Iraqis sabotaged the field during the 1st Persian gulf war. We are talking about really a second rate industrial system and even with oil fields there is some serious equipment that needs to be repaired. Oil tanks, well heads pipelines, pumping machinery-equipment that the Japanese economy would be hard pressed to come up with. Basically as the Allied bombed out things in Japan very little got repaired. They just did not have the surplus capacity to repair heavy equipment, much less ships and planes.

Of course, you have an intact KB with virtually all the carriers you can get. Perhaps a carrier fight is in order.

As much as I would hate to have had this result myself, I also know how incredibly easy it is to destroy an oilfield and the associated refining facilities. The amount of care and technology required just to keep these things from blowing up due to accidents is incredible. In war, you cannot hope to keep these from burning if a bomber can get within "sniffing" distance. Besides the WWII examples, even more modern day examples are plentiful: Kuwait oilfields 1980, Beirut refinery 1978, Abadan ....

So maybe it should or shouldn't be tied to manpower, but the fact would remain that they need to be incredibly susceptible air attack. Sorry.

Refineries... hmm... OK, I agree. I think you're right. They're very fragile and difficult to defend and rebuild. But an oil center in game terms is not a a refinery. It's a crude oil source. It can burn long but then... is it that difficult to rebuild just the same as sophisticated refinery center?

Oil wells can take as long, or even longer to replace than a refinery. Many times, you have to re-drill the wells after a fire as the casings crack. Several months each to drill each well (these are shallow wells at this point in time). Even if you have 10 drilling rigs in the field, which is a LOT of rigs by US standards, a 200 well field is several years to re-drill. Palembang is 1000's of wells. In DEI in the 40's, they would have been hard pressed to come up with even 10 rigs. Better to say they might have been able to pull together 5 or so. Very specialized equipment and operators.

Refineries in the 40's weren't all that sophisticated, particularly by todays standards. Mostly just distillation towers. They did not treat the oil much, and actually flared (burned) a lot of what they could not use. Now, what actually happens is more like you break it down first and then build it up to what you want. Very little wasted at all.

Which could be rebuilt easier? They're both about the same in terms of time and expertise in this era.

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder Viberpol, if you don't want your critical resource centers destroyed you might want to consider using RADAR at those sites.... Bomb accuracy will drop from the increased intercepts.....

Thanks, but I am not that dumb to leave the crucial resources without radar. There's both type 3 radars and Ta-Chi 7 from base forces and AA units present.